Automatic door and conveying system



Jan. 7, 1958 s. w. WARNER AUTOMATIC DOOR AND CONVEYING SYSTEM Filed Nov. 6, 1955 2 Sheets-Sheet l Jan. 7, 1958 s. w. WARNER AUTOMATIC DOOR AND CONVEYING SYSTEM 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Nov. 6, 1953 AUTOMATIC DOOR AND CONVEYING SYSTEM Sterling W. Warner, Fredericksburg, Va., assignor to American Viscose Corporation, Philadelphia, Pa., a corporation of Delaware Application November 6, 1953, Serial No. 390,514 Claims. (Cl. 34-242) The present invention relates to doors or shutters for equipment adapted to receive and/or discharge a thln gauge continuous article, such as a running sheet material, and particularly to doors or shutters that are applicable to equipment employing a conveyor, such as an endless belt, adapted to advance a material disposed in continuous length and fiat cross section. For example, in the manufacturing of cellophane, paper, or other sheet material of similar proportions, a sheet may be laced through equipment comprising spaced parallel chains by securing the leading end of the sheet to an elongated tube or rod which in turn is fixed at its opposite ends to the spaced chains. When the conveyor is employed for lacing a running sheet through a chamber maintained substantially closed from the atmosphere during operation, it is of course necessary that a suitable door or closure be provided adjacent the conveyor path to facilitate the ingress and egress of the lacing element into and out from the chamber itself.

The automatic doors of this invention have particular utility with a machine currently in use for applying moistureproof coatings to cellophane or other thin sheets of wrapping material. Upon application to the base cellophane sheet, the coating material remains tacky until substantially dried. In this condition, the surface and transparency of the coated sheet may be readily marred or damaged if contacted by other solid objects or materials. Thus, in such machines the sheet is supported by and between oppositely directed streams of heated air, or other gaseous medium, the flow of which is carefully adjusted to achieve a planula-r suspension of the sheet as it proceeds through a drying chamber. The flow of gaseous medium is adjusted to obtain the optimum operating conditions, and thus the level at which the suspended sheet travels through a particular drying chamber may not necessarily be the same as that of the pair of spaced lacing chains heretofore mentioned. The sheet, however, must enter and leave the various drying chambers through narrow slit-like openings which are located at the level of the suspended sheet. Each such opening is formed by a pair of vertically reciprocable doors which may be adjusted independently relative to each other to vary the size of the opening, or to adjust the opening itself to the level of the suspended sheet. The lacing chains themselves extend through the end walls of the drying chambers and beyond the ends of the door. Once the gas or air supply is adjusted, the machine may be operated indefinitely without readjustment. Unfortunately, sheet material must be frequently laced through the machine and since a single coating machine ordinarily comprises several drying chambers with doors at each end, substantial labor is involved both in opening and resetting the doors for each lacing operation.

In corporation of the invention into the machine re-' ferred to above is merely exemplary of one manner of using the invention and, for illustration, the invention is described in detail with respect to such machine.

It is an object of the invention to provide an auto- States ice . for movement both within its plane and at an angle relative thereto.

It is also an object to provide doors in accordance with the above named objects that are yieldable in response to a force applied thereto and which automatically return to their normal positions when such force is removed.

It is still another object to provide doors in accordance with the above objects that are adapted to together form a restricted opening for a traveling web and are capable of adjusting themselves to the thickness of the material passing therebetween.

Still another object of considerable importance is to provide doors in pairs in accordance with the above objects the doors of each pair of doors cooperating with a wall opening and being adjustable relative to each other to provide a slit-like aperture which can be located at any desired position relative to the wall opening.

Other objects, features, and advantages will become apparent from the following description of the invention and the drawings relating thereto in which Fig. 1 is a diagrammatic vertical section of apparatus incorporating the doors of the present invention with portions of the structure broken away;

Fig. 2 is an end view of the apparatus shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary section view illustrating one of the yieldable doors of the present invention;

Fig. 4 is a view similar to Fig. 3 illustrating another yieldable door of the present invention; and

Fig. 5 is an enlarged fragmentary section of the perforated gas supply header shown in Fig. 1.

In general, the invention comprises a laterally yieldable door or shutter, and a mounting system therefor whereby the door is normally supported in a plane parallel to the plane of the opening which it closes. The door is movable within its own plane for exposing or covering a desired portion of the opening, and in a preferred embodiment, the door comprises one or more hinged or swingable sections resiliently urged into the normal plane of the door. These sections, when engaged by material traveling a path extending through the opening partially covered by the door, are moved laterally with respect to the material path until the material has passed into and through the opening, after which the sections are resiliently urged into their normal position.

With reference to the drawings, lacing of a sheet material 5 through the dryer structure illustrated is effected by securing the leading end of the sheet 5 to a rod or element 6 which extends between and is carried by a pair of spaced parallel lacing chains 3 and 9. The chains 8 and 9 travel longitudinally through the dryer and are spaced apart a distance greater than the width of the sheet material to allow the latter to seek its normal operating level within the dryer without contact with the chains.

During a lacing operation, the lacing element 6 is engaged by lacing chain cleats 12 which serve to advance both the element 6 and the leading end of the sheet 5 toward the doors 1% and 11 which are adjusted into close relationship relative to each other and the normal path P of the sheet, to substantially close the entrance of the dryer from the atmosphere. The upper pass of the conveyor 9 travels through the entrance port 13a, the interior of the dryer, and the exit port 13b, the latter of which is partially closed by the doors 14 and 15. The door it) comprises sections 16, 17, and 18, each of a length slightly less than the length of the dryer entrance port 13a. The section 16 is rigidly attached to a pair of slide rods 19 and 20, while the sections 17 and 18 are connected to each other and to the section 16 by spring-loaded hinges 21, so that the door sections, when engaged bya horizontally moving object such as the lacing rod 6, may swing inwardly ofthe port 13a and upwardly from the conveyor chains.

The door 11, also formed of resiliently hinged sec.- tions similar to those of door 10, has its upper end disposed above the plane of the conveyor chains, and. thus its uppermost section 18 will be urged inwardly of the dryer port 13a as the element 6 is moved into the dryer. Under these conditions, the doorlt) will maintain its normal vertical position. The sections of the doors 14 and 15 may, if desired, overlap the periphery of its port 13b since these doors, when. engaged by the lacing element, will swing outwardly away from. the adjacent endwall of the dryer. As shown, the doors 14 and 15 comprise a single panel swingably supported to individual slide rods.

The doors 10, 11, 14, and 15 are vertically retractable with each door being mounted ona pair of slide rods which pass through slide blocks disposed in spaced relationship. As illustrated, the doors 10 and 11 are each independently supported by the slide rods 19 and 20, the former of which extends through bearings or slide blocks 22 and 23 while the latter passes through slide blocks 24 and 25.

The rods 19 and 20 of each independent pair of slide rods are attached rigidly to the doors 10 and 11 and extend in parallel relationship to enable adjustment of the same by their respective lever systems, which includesv a horizontally extending shaft 27' supported by bearings 28 and 29 mounted on the dryer end wall. Crank arms 31 and 32 are fixed to each of the shafts 27 and are pivotally connected. to the links 33 and 34 respectively. The links are in turn connected to dogs 35- and 36 secured to the slide rods 19 and 20 respectively. The shafts 27 are each rotated by a lever 38 relative to a fixed quadrant 39. A nut 40,. threaded onto a bolt 41 extending through its respective lever 38 and an arcuate slot 42 formed in the quadrant 39, may be tightened to secure the doors 10 and 11 in desired positions.

The doors 14 and 15 at the exit end of the dryer are mounted in a manner similar to the doors 10 and 11 to enable the same to yieldably swing toward the right, as viewed in Fig. 1', in agreement with the direction of the advancing. movement of the sheet 5. Thus, the lower end of the door 14 swings away from the end of the dryer and the exit port 13b whereas the door 10 swings inwardly of the entrance port when engaged by an object of substantial thickness carried by the conveyor chains. The doors 14 and 15 are also supported by pairs of slide rods 44 and 45 respectively in the same fashion as described with respect to the doors 18 and 11. In this case, however, the doors 14 and 15 are operated by separate rack and pinion mechanisms, each of which includes rack teeth 46 provided along the outermost edge of the respective slide rods 44 and 45, a shaft 47 supported by spaced bearings 48, and a pinion 49 keyed to the shaft 47 and meshing with the rack teeth 46. Rotation of the independent shafts 47 to lower or raise their respective door is accomplished by operation of one of the cranks 51 secured to the shafts themselves.

Thus, with the chain conveyor moving in a clockwise direction, as viewed in Figure l, the sheet material may be threaded through a dryer between hot gas supply headers 54 and 55,. in a manner as described above, by attaching the leading end of the sheet to the element 6 and disposing the element between the chains 8 and 9 and in engagement with the chain cleats 12. The element 6. as it engages the door 11, swings, the hinged sections thereof inwardly of the entrance port 13auntil the element 6 has advanced sufficiently to clear the swinging arc of the door, after which the displaced door sections resiliently swing back to their normal alignment in which they assist in substantially closing the dryer entrance from the atmosphere. As the element 6 passes through the dryer exit port 13b, the hinged section of the door 15 swings outwardly away from the port 13b until the element 6 clears the swinging path of this door whereupon its hinged section. returns. to its normally straight or vertically aligned disposition. The lacing element 6 may then be removed from the leading end of the sheet 5' or may be employed in lacing the sheet through other apparatus.

Fig. 3 illustrates an enlarged fragmentary view of the door 10 showing the door section 16 attached to the slide rod 20. While a single slide rod may be employed to support the door 10, a. plurality of such rods are preferred as shown in Fig. 2. The sections 17 and 18 of the door are held in normally straight alignment with the section 16 by the spring loaded hinges. 21. As shown, the door 10' is conveniently formed" of metal panels having their end portions bent at.90 angles to the main body thereof to form longitudinally extending flanges 61, 62, 64 and 65. The flanges 61 and 62 of sections 16 and 17 respectively engage in back-to-back relationship when the d'ooris in its normal alignment, and thus the flanges function as stop means limiting: the return movement of the door sections as well as a means for reinforcing thesame. In a similar manner, the flanges 64 and 65 also serve to reinforce the door and to limit the movement of the se'ctionsi1 7 and 18 relative to each other. Vertical webs 67, 68, and 69 extend between the horizontal flanges of respective door sections to reinforce the doors in a vertical direction. The door 10' is thus adapted for reciprocal movement within its own plane and parallel to the dryer end wall 71, and is also capable of swinging to the right, as viewed in Fig; 1, to provide the necessary clearance during the lacing operations. The door 11, as seen in Figs. 1 and 2, is of course similar to the door 10 both in construction and function.

The movement of the doors 10' and 11 in a direction inwardly of the dryer may be arrested as by a stop plate 73 shown in Fig. 3', which is adapted to engage with a protruding rolled portion 74 formed on the outermost sections 18. Each plate 73 is provided with an inclined edge 73a and extends almost to the inner face of its respective door and into the vertical path of the door rolled portion 74'. The rolled portions 74 of the doors 10 andfl also function to provide a smooth friction-free surface over which the sheet being laced may slide.

Fig. 4 illustrates an enlarged fragmentary view of the door 15, which is also flexibly displaceable relative to the plane indicated at P. The door 15 is adapted to be moved within its own plane and parallel to the dryer end wall by reciprocal movement of the slide rods to which the door is secured. The door 15 comprises a single section 84 mounted pivotally on the slide rods 45 by a pivot rod 85 which passes through a pair of slide rods 45 and the vertical flanges 88 of the door itself. Thus, the section 84 may be swung out of its normal plane in a clockwise direction about the pivot rod 85, as viewed in Fig. 1, and will be returned to its normal plane by a spring 86, which encircles the pivot rod 85' and has one end 87 hooked over the vertical flange 88 while its other end 89' is hooked about a slide rod 45. The door 15 is reinforced longitudinally by an angular element 91', and transversely by two or more spaced vertical webs. It will be understood that the door 14 is similar tov the door 15, described above, both in construction and function.

The doors 14 and 15 are each provided with arolled or tubular portion 92' which extends horizontally along the length, of door. These. rounded portions enable objects or material passing outwardly from the dryer to slide freely without abrading over the door edge. For example, as used in a cellophane coating machine, the cellophane may pass over the rounded surface of portion 92, after'the lacing element 6 clears the door, without being marred, even as the door springs back to 1ts normal position of vertical alignment.

Fig. 5 is an enlarged fragmentary section illustrating structure for discharging air or other gas from the headers 54 and 55. Referring to header 55, the upper wall 95 thereof is provided with ports 96 and supports channel shaped dampers 97 for movement between detents 98. The dampers may be shifted in the direction of the arrows shown to expose the ports 96 for regulating the air or gas flow from the interior of the header. Simultaneous movement of the dampers 97 is effected by a bar 99 which extends horizontally along the ends of the dampers and is preferably removably connected thereto by short rodlike elements 101. The dryer side wall 102 has a slot 103 through which extends a handle 104 facilitating shifting of the dampers 97 exteriorly of the dryer. The damper control structure described above extends along the left wall of the dryer as viewed in Fig. 2, with similar control structure preferably provided also along the right Wall of the dryer. Similar damper and control systems are provided for the header 54 as indicated in Fig. l.

The headers 54 and 55 receive a gaseous medium, such as heated air, through feed ducts 106 and 107 respectively. The air or other gas discharged from the headers into the region traversed by the sheet 5 flows past the sides of the headers, i. e., between the headers and the walls of the dryer, into discharge ducts 109 and 110. By careful adjustment of the air delivery, the sheet 5 is suspended and supported by the air issuing from the headers within the region therebetween without contact with any dryer parts. The doors 10, 11, 14, and are adjusted as close as possible to provide slits or openings for the passage of the sheet without contact with the doors and yet minimize the escape of the heated gas. Since the sheet normally undulates slightly in a vertical direction, an opening of substantially less than two inches is generally inadvisable.

As heretofore mentioned, the elevation of the opening formed between the doors is independent of the uppermost level of the lacing chain. Doors of the type described herein need not be opened and reset during the frequent dryer lacing operations when it is used as a part of a machine for coating a wrapping film such as cellophane. This feature, of course, is highly advantageous as it eliminates the need for numbers and repeated adjustments once optimum operating conditions have been obtained.

While preferred embodiments of the invention have been shown and described, it is to be understood that changes and variations may be made Without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. In combination with a chamber for treating a continuous running sheet of material, the chamber comprising end walls having openings for the passage of the sheet material along a path extending through the chamber, means for supplying a gas into said chamber for use in supporting the sheet along said path and to dispose said path in any desired planular alignment substantially parallel to a plane extending through both openings, a door at each opening, guide means and means for reciprocating each door along a path extending in substantially parallel spaced relation with a surface of the end wall within said opening is defined, each of said doors being movable in a direction normal to the general plane of said path for said sheet to and from a position wherein the door at least partly closes its respective opening, each door comprising a section that is swingable with respect to the reciprocable means out of its normal position within the path of the door to expose at least a portion of its respective opening, each door comprising means for urging said section thereof into its normal position, said section of the door mounted adjacent the receiving opening being swingable inwardly thereof, and said section of the door mounted adjacent the discharge opening being swingable away 6 therefrom, the edge portions of the doors nearest the path of the sheet being approximately parallel thereto, and means for holding the doors in predetermined positions along their respective paths whereby said edge portions may be disposed closely to the path of the sheet.

2. A combination as defined in claim 1 wherein a pair of doors are mounted adjacent each of said openings, and guide means for each pair of said doors mounted adjacent each opening to permit movement of the doors of each pair of doors along the wall toward and away from each other, whereby respective edge portions of the doors may be disposed closely adjacent the path of the sheet on opposite sides thereof.

3. In combination with a substantially flat wall having an opening, a pair of normally-planular doors supported adjacent to the wall for movement toward and away from each other to close or expose said opening, guide means and means in reciprocable relation with respect to the guide means supporting each door for independent movement as a planar unit along a path extending in spaced parallel relation with said flat wall, the guide means for each door being disposed beyond the end of the path of the door which it supports, each door extending from connection thereof with its reciprocable means along the path therefor toward a position disposing it over the opening, the opposing adjacent portions of said doors each comprising a section swingable with respect to its respective reciprocable means out of its position within the normal plane of the door to expose at least a portion of the opening, means for urging each of the swingable sections into its normal position, said reciprocating means of each door being independently adjustable to change both the width of a gap between opposing edges of the doors and to dispose said edges over a desired portion of the opening.

4. In combination with a substantially flat wall having an opening, a pair of generally planular doors of which each comprises a plurality of sections, guide means and means in reciprocable relation with respect to the guide means supporting each door for independent movement as a planar unit along a path extending in spaced parallel relation with said fiat wall, the guide means for each door being disposed beyond the end of the path of the door which it supports, each door extending from a connection thereof with the reciprocable means along the path therefor toward a position disposing it over the opening, said sections of each door being normally disposed Within the general plane of the door in series hinged relationship, each door having one section fixed to the reciprocable means with the other of its sections being swingable with respect to said fixed section out of their planular relationship to expose at least a portion of the opening, means for urging all of said swingable sections into said normal planular relationship of respective doors, said reciprocating means of each door being independently adjustable to change the width of a gap between opposing edges of the door and to dispose said edges over a desired portion of the opening.

5. In combination with a chamber for treating a continuous running sheet of material, the chamber comprising end walls having openings serving as an entrance and exit for the sheet as it travels along a path extending through the chamber, opposed perforated gas supplying headers located on opposite sides of said path, said headers being adjustable to facilitate the support of the sheet along a plane substantially parallel to a plane extending through said openings by the gas delivered into said chamber, a door at each opening, guide means and means for reciprocating each door along a path extending in substantially parallel spaced relation with a surface of each end of the wall within which said opening is defined, each of said doors being movable in a direction normal to the general plane of said path to and from a position wherein the door at least partly closes its respective opening, each door comprising a section that swingable with respect to the reciprocable means out of its normal position within. the path of the door to expose at least a portion of its respective opening, each door comprising means for urging said section back into its normal position, said section of the door mounted adjacent. the chamber entrance: openingv being swingable inwardly thereof. and said section of the door adjacent the chamber exiti opening being swingable away therefrom, the: edge: portions of' the doors nearest the path of the. sheet being. approximately parallel thereto, means for holding the doors in predetermined positions along their respective paths whereby said edge portions maybe disposed closely to the path: of. the sheet, a pair of parallel lacing: members extending through the chamber and the openings thereof, said lacing members being spaced apart a distance greater than the width of. the path of the sheet and extending along parallel planes disposed substantially 8 normal to the path of the sheet, and anelongate lacing element to which the: leadingiend of asheet may be at tached, said element having a length greater than: the spacing between said lacing members and being adapted to be laid thereacross.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 952,829 Matthews Mar. 22, 1910 992,492 Flaccus May 16, 1911 1,050,677 Mitchell Jan. 14', 191-3 1,492,485 Shear Apr. 29-, 1924 1,667,737 Nichols May 1', 19-28 FOREIGN PATENTS 298,395 Great Britain Oct. 11, 1928 334,952 Great Britain Sept. 15, 19 30 

